Mastering the masters

Guild’s March concert poses unique challenges

In keeping with its artistic mission, the Guild Chorus once again presents a March concert of rarely-heard a cappella music. Entitled “Flemish Masters,” the program features exquisite pieces by Renaissance giants Josquin Despres, Roland de Lassus (AKA Orlando di Lasso) and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck; also works by two of the foremost 20th century Dutch composers, Henk Badings and Ton DeLeeuw.

When he planned this program a year ago, Guild Music Director Sanford Dole was excited by the prospect of performing music written 400–500 years apart, showcasing works written in the consummate Renaissance style along with examples of the rich contemporary choral output from the Netherlands.

While the concept was marvelous and the musical choices of stunning beauty, little did we know that the production of such ambitious repertoire would pose rather daunting challenges, all of which had to do with obtaining actual performing scores. Extraordinary effort was expended to acquire the sheet music for every piece in this concert. This, we found, was the unforeseen (by us) and unseen (to the audience) cost of bringing these unusual works to light.

The Guild Chorus performed Josquin’s Missa Pange Lingua in March 1992. At that time the only published edition available was of the original version, written for men and boys, in the key of A-minor. There did exist an arrangement for mixed choirs, transposed to the higher key of C-minor—but unfortunately it was out of print. We contacted the publisher and paid for rights to photocopy their out-of-print edition.

When we decided to reprise this wonderful work, which was written at the culmination of Josquin’s long career, we were pleased to learn that we could now purchase a published C-minor version. Alas, at our first rehearsal we were shocked by the discovery that this edition had been drastically abridged, with over a third of the music eliminated. Believing that this tampering was no less than sacrilege, we tossed aside our brand-new scores and reverted to our tired but unabridged photocopies.

Doing our own editions

After a lengthy search which turned up no available scores, Sanford Dole created his own editions of the Lassus Laudate Dominum. and Sweelinck’s Psalm 148. Although the hunt for performing scores yielded nothing that we could purchase commercially, the collected works of both composers are available in the music collections of Cal and Stanford libraries, thus accessible to our music director who, as a composer himself, is adept with music publishing software.

Both works are treatments of Psalm 148 “Praise the Lord.” The Lassus motet was written to accompany church services, so the text is in Latin. Written a century later, Sweelinck’s Psalm was intended not for the worship service but for the private use of prosperous bourgeois families, where French was the language of fashion.

Lost in the mail

The greatest challenges—and frustrations—came with our efforts to secure the music of Badings and DeLeeuw. Sanford reviewed a number of recordings and perused many different pieces, most of which were prohibitively expensive ($18 for a 10-minute piece) for our choristers, who purchase their own music. He finally settled on two works which were not only gorgeous, but also reasonably priced.

Henk Badings’s unusual musical scales and harmonies create haunting and magical sonorities in Trois chansons Bretonnes, which are lush settings of French poems by Theodore Botrel. In contrast, Ton de Leeuw’s Priere is more stark and transparent, with elements reminiscent of Renaissance chant. These pieces were shipped to us, airmail from Holland, on January 4. Four weeks later, they still hadn’t arrived, and we had visions of our big box of choral scores sitting on a dock somewhere, awaiting irradiation treatment against anthrax.

Desperate to start rehearsing, we were granted copying privileges by the publisher who conceded that the shipment had indeed been lost in the mail. We were able to obtain single master copies of the Badings chansons but the DeLeeuw Priere had to be faxed to us from Amsterdam by the publisher.

As always, our concert preparations for were greatly aided by the study tapes, translations, and pronunciation guides prepared for us by Norm Proctor. Our thanks also go to chorus volunteers Ken Gundry and Henry Kahn, who helped us with photocopying. We wish to acknowledge the efforts of Rob Lappa, owner of Camerata Music, who spent a lot of time on international phonecalls and emails.

Concerts will be held Saturday and Sunday, March 16 and 17. See all-purpose coupon on page three for ticket ordering information.

Volume 10, Issue 3

Baroque Choral Guild, 953 Industrial Ave. Ste 118, Palo Alto CA 94303, 650.424.1410